Say You'd Come and Stop the Rain
by Shari-Bob
Summary: (songfic) Harry has always been given pretty promises, only to have them broken. But what happens when the promise was all that gave him strength? Is there anything beneath the mask of the boy-who-lived? OOtP spoilers
1. 1,1

Title: Say You'd Come and Stop the Rain  
  
Author: Sharistarlight  
  
Rating: R -- it's extremely weird and has much language. No sex, though. This is all angst. Yeah.   
  
Spoilers: all five books  
  
Disclaimer: Yeah. J.K.Rowling own, not me. And the song was written by Vanessa Carlton. So ... yeah.  
  
~*~*~  
  
A.N.: Yeah, this is my first venture into writing Harry Potter fanfiction. I've written some Roswell fanfics but that's a whole other ballgame, really. Anyway, so, this is a songfic I wrote post-OOtP, during the summer. It's really angsty. It's not a touching piece --- it's just sad. This is how I pictured Harry would react to the death ... after the crazy rage, of course. I just believe in this Harry Potter more than the one Rowling describes. I mean, yeah, he's a great guy. But he doesn't have enough issues to have lived in a cupboard for ten years. I mean, does no one else think the boy would be just a little traumatized by the event? Just a little bit?  
  
Anyway, please review! I'm actually also working on a short story for my Creative Writing class right now so any observations/advice/criticism on my writing style or the fic as a whole would really be great. If I get some positive feedback, I'll start writing some more. I don't write series because, well, I'm lazy and I never finish. And I'm just better at little glimpses and subvert plots than your traditional fic, I think. Mainly because I become the characters I write, and so my characters are always Mary-Sue when I right multi-chaptered stories. But when I just write one-parters, I generally choose more morbid or dark ideas so ...   
  
~*~*~  
  
"My heart, your hands  
  
Gentle, my friend"  
  
I've been practicing astral projection, you know. I work on it every night, floating above Privet Drive. It's odd to see my childhood prison from an outsider's viewpoint. I break free from the shackles of my physical frame and fly into the outside world. I leave behind all of it -- the scar, the physchopath, the incompetant, the manupilator. I leave behind the phrophecy, the veil, the lullaby. So it's just me. The same way it was before magic. Just me and the cupboard and the spiders. Peace. Truth.  
  
"Break me neatly  
  
Numb me sweetly"  
  
It's raining outside my bedroom. I know it is. And yet there is no storm raging where I am, no steady beat of rain pounding like wardums. There is no barred window, no broken toys. No wand beneath my pillow in case of emergiencies. I'm far away from the smallest bedroom in Number Four Privet Drive. I'm somewhere else -- and yet nowhere else. I float, a wraith, through the mill of the ordinary people. A king costumed as a begar to observe the little people. But I don't want to be a king. I want Sirius. I want fulfilled promises. I want to be an infant again, with a naked forehead and a loving mum. I want to erase the last fifteen years of my life. No Dursleys. No Boy-who-lived. No facade of strength. To be just Harry -- the Harry that should have been rather than the cracked and false version that I have become.   
  
"Say you would, say you could, say you'd come and stop the rain  
  
Say you'd try and hold me tight and you just give me away  
  
Make me high on lullabies, a melody for me to sway  
  
Say you would, say you could, but you don't do anything"  
  
I've always wondered how the wizarding world could be so blind. How any of them think I want attention, crave it like oxygen. No, it's something completely diffrent -- a neglected addiction to love. I can not recall a single time anyone has told me they loved me. I'm quite certained I've never said the phrase, either. In the Department of Mysteries, when I thought I was about to die, a string of memories flitted through me. The first time Mrs. Weasley hugged me. The time Hermione kissed my cheek. The crushing hug Sirius gave me last summer. They were all signs of physical affection. All of them. Yet I doubt any of those three people ever had a clue how much I treasured it.   
  
How could the wizarding world not have seen me all those years ago? No. They saw the scar, my mother's eyes, my father's face -- but they didn't see me. They didn't see me for the abused, neglected little boy that I was. No, they saw the boy-who-lived, how I hate him. Perhaps it's not healthy to do so, but it cannot be helped. Muggles call it Dissociative Identity Disorder, I think. I have two of them: the hesitant, abused youth and the brave hero. The hero takes over when I face down Voldemort, the abused child when I face down Cho. It's funny, really. I think I know why I do not fear Voldemort. Because we're the same, really. I mean, yeah, I'm not a mass murder or a raving lunatic, but I'm not exactly sane, either. How can anyone be completely sane when they have a psychopath trying to get in their head and they spent ten of their most impressionable years being mocked, beating, starved, and ridiculed? It's just not possible. But I think Tom Marvalo Riddle had the same plague haunting his soul that I do. We are similiar -- similar power, similar backgrounds, similar wands, similar features. And, moreover, I'm almost completely convinced that Tom Riddle also developed Dissociative Identity Disorder. I think he was ... is ... really two people: Tom Riddle, the lonely abused orphan, and Lord Voldemort, the obsessed tyrant. I suppose a part of his mind just snapped at some point -- the repressed part of his subconscious rebelled against his unnatural submissive feeling of worthlessness and inferiority. Some part of his mind, hidden somewhere deep within, knew that Tom's abusers were the wrong ones, that Tom didn't deserve that kind of treatment. But it is recurrent in long-term victims of abuse for the victims to believe that they deserved the abuse, that they did something wrong, that the abuser was perfectly justified in what he/she did. So, you see, Tom was the part that believed he was inferior to everyone -- all his peers -- and that there was something wrong with him because he was never enough. He always did something bad. That's probably why he became so brilliant at magic, studying excessively as if to live up to this completely fucked idea he had of what his abusers wanted from him. Then, there was the part of his mind that knew he didn't deserve to be abused and that he could never be good enough for the orphanage officials -- Lord Voldemort. Now, Voldemort knew that it wasn't his fault but their fault. He knew he wasn't inferior. The only catch ... that which we so actively repress becomes ridiculously exagerrated -- the intensity increasing from a spark of light to a raging inferno. Yeah, Voldemort knew he wasn't inferior to everyone -- he thought everyone was inferior to him. He knew he didn't deserve abuse -- he thought everyone else did. He punished the world that once sentenced him to his hell.  
  
Sometimes I want to punish the world. There's this anger in me that sometimes smashes through my mask; its too intense, too powerful. I cannot control it. In Dumbledore's office, all my pain and frustration and hurt slammed through my power. Anger and pain filled me till I was no longer Harry nor the boy-who-lived. My identity, all I knew was rage. When I came back to my senses, I was horrified at the destruction I'd wrought. I felt like I was becoming Voldemort. In moments like these, I'm frightened of what I will become. I'm fear that my past prevents me from ever having a future. Abuse and abandonment ruined Tom Riddle. Will it run me, as well?  
  
"Come down heavy  
  
Try and steady  
  
Precious ladies  
  
Love you, love me"  
  
Really, if you think about it, it's the wizarding world who bears responsibility for the rise of Voldemort -- both in the historical terms and the psychological terms. The wizarding world is immaculately effecient in only what thing: complete and utter obliviousness. There are exceptions, like Professor Dumbledore, but they are few and far between. The wizarding world ignores things like mental instability, child abuse, emotional illness. They have become so dependant on magic that all they know is magic. Most wizards don't understand photosynthesis. They couldn't explain Darwin's theory of evolution or the Big Bang. They probably wouldn't even be able to define 'homo sapien.' All their concerned about is the study of magic, the maintance of magic, and the concealment of magic. Noticing a pattern, anyone?  
  
"Say you would, say you could, say you'd come and stop the rain  
  
Say you'd try and hold me tight and you just give me away  
  
Make me high on lullabies, a melody for me to sway  
  
Say you would, say you could, but you don't do anything"  
  
It still isn't quite real to me yet, Sirius's death. I mean, I didn't actually see him die or anything. I never saw a corpse, never attended a memorial service. I saw him go through a veil. A thin, wispy little veil. Yeah, that really coincides with death in my mind. So here I am, I know Sirius is gone. I can feel it. There is this gaping hole in me, this crack in my mask. This little puppet isn't playing the part. The boy-who-lived has fled; the only one left to carry out the prophecy, to murder Voldemort, to fulfill my destiny is Harry. The broken little boy hugging himself in the dark cupboard, crying silently so he wouldn't get beaten and trying to remember what it felt like to have his mother hold him. So, yeah. The Wizarding World is short one Golden Boy, after all. Not that they've believed to be such lately. Such fickle adoration. My shelter, my facade, is broken and it just won't fix; I can't play the part that they expect. I've forgotten my lines.  
  
Most of the wizarding world won't notice, I'm sure. After all, why would they suddenly change from blind fools now? But to those who even knew me at all, for those who even saw a bit of Harry behind the boy-who-lived -- or even those who saw the boy-who-lived behind the hero -- to them, now my mask, deformed and cracked yet still hanging stubbornly ... it's alien. Sure, it's not like I'm a completely different person, but I'm still quite different. To tell the truth, the mask has been slipping ever since the Tournament -- I guess the boy-who-lived couldn't handle the fact that good doesn't always prevail. Just Harry ... well, he's been making appearances for a while now. It's just now I don't have the boy-who-lived to clean up the mess.   
  
My friends -- Hermione and Ron; well, really their my family, they're not shell-shocked at the change or anything. It's almost as though they somehow expected it. To be fair, they were subjected to the Harry behind the mask far more often than anyone else. Not that that's to say they saw a lot of him, no, but they suffered him the most. Besides, there is little chance that Hermione hadn't, throughout the years, seen through my defense mechanisms and false bravado at least somewhat; I'm sure she has many theories and explanations for the way that I am, the way that I act. I doubt, however, that she has any inclination of the depth to which I have been affected by my luck. (People often credit me with having luck -- of course, they imply good fortune. Am I the only one who can see the dark rain cloud that is constantly floating atop my head?) And Ron? Well, this is the guy who has been sleeping next to me for five years. He's seen me after many a nightmare, before I had the chance to slip my mask back on. He's seen the scared, haunted face that lies behind all my layers of defense -- he's seen my weakness. He's also seen my anger -- him and Hermione. One thing I have observed about abuse victims? They hold an unfathomable amount of rage at the world in the depth of their hearts; I think that's why so many in turn become aggressors -- many abused kids grow up to beat their own children, no matter how ferverently they promised themselves when they were young not to do so.   
  
Yeah, Hermione and Ron recognize Just Harry. They don't know him, they don't understand him, they don't always feel comfortable around him, but they recognize him. Which is more than I can say for some -- and for the record I'm referring to those who actually look beyond the scar or the legacy of my parents, at Harry. Mrs. Weasely wasn't shocked at the sight of, well, me. I kinda think that she has never seen me as anything but a neglected, affection-hungry young orphan struck by relentless tragedy. I have spent a large amount of time being pulled into her lap and rocked back and forth. I should be embarrassed by this. But apparently all natural teenage modesty fled along with the boy-who-lived. Mr. Weasely? He's not like his wife, exactly. He welcomed me into his family, but I am not his child. Men can't just adopt teenage boys like women can. He did not embrace me, but somehow comfort simply seemed to radiate from his presence. Is that what fathers do, give off vibes of comfort? I think the tragedy this war has brought me made him loyal to the cause with newfound vigor -- enough to have actually driven away one of his own sons, though to be fair this was not his intention.  
  
Moody wasn't exactly shocked. I don't think he really has the capability of interpreting anything on an emotional level; he sees so clearly that he never thinks to look. His visits are usually fairly quick and often involve a new Defense book for me to study. Tonks had no clue how to act around me anymore. She gave me quick hugs and always brought various treats; our visits generally involved criticisim and mockery of the Ministry and Daily Prophet as well as very evasive updates on what the Order is currently doing.   
  
However, I think the relationship that has changed the most is Remus. He avoided visiting for a while before finally getting the balls to come -- or being bullied by Mrs. Weasely, which is equally as likely. Now, he seemed to have gotten a bit of a shock. He entered my cramped little room with the determined face of a soldier resigned to battle, but his mouth fell open and his eyes widened. I think it was the fact that I was shirtless at the time. Hey, the visit was unexpected, I had no reason to hide away signs of Vernon's belt. I think he's always seen me as I was, to an extent -- but in a golden light that epitomized all I was. He always saw in me what he always that he would see in James and Lily Potter's child. Yeah, well not anymore. The visit blurs in my memory, but I remember him asking about my abuse. Me avoiding the issue. Him asking what prophecy Phineus's portrait was talking about. Me avoiding the issue. Him talking about Sirius. Me avoiding the issue. Him getting hurt. Me avoiding the issue. Noticing a pattern? He eventually gave up, muttering about how he knew that I would hardly choose him to confide in after all. Yeah. Self-deprecation. Fuck that shit. (I am such a hypocrite.) I still didn't tell him about the prophecy or about the scars or about Sirius. I only said that I wasn't ready, but that I wanted Remus there when I was. And then I told him that the truth wasn't pretty, but then neither was Snape and he did work with the man for a year. The somber mood broke slightly, and then he hugged me. Well, that was kinda surreal; he'd never done that before. But, strangely, it felt more like being hugged by a father figure than it had ever felt with Sirius. And then guilt.   
  
But, anyway. So the Order's been babysitting me all summer. Either they think I'm gonna crack and jump off the roof or they're trying to keep me busy so I don't tortue myself too much with thoughts of Sirius, I'm not sure. But I'm fairly positive it's all Dumbledore's idea. Damnit.  
  
"Hold my head up to the lies   
  
That you feed me  
  
And I'll fall under the spell you cast  
  
As you let me down"  
  
So many people have whispered pretty promises in my ear, and almost all of them have been broken. My mother cooing in my ear when I was a child that I was safe, Voldemort saying he would kill me, Professor Dumbledore saying Voldemort would never threaten a Hogwarts student while he was around, Sirius saying I would finally be able to leave the Dursleys and have a home. It just goes on and on. And everytime a promise is broken, a little part of me crumbles away. Just look now, there's so little left to break.   
  
"Say you would, say you could, say you'd come and stop the rain  
  
Say you'd try and hold me tight, but you just give me away  
  
Make me high on lullabies, a melody for me to sway  
  
Make me high on lullabies, a melody for me to sway"  
  
I know Sirius's death isn't the end of my pseudo-parental figures, but it was the end of my hope. To leave the Dursleys. God, to leave the Dursleys. It was also the end of someone whose main purpose in life was to protect me. That is something Remus will never have. Sirius escaped from fucking Azhaban to protect me. It just felt so good to have someone care so much about my well-being. And from what I've seen from Snape's penseive, Sirius was probably the most like my father of anyone. Which wasn't really a good thing in that particular memory, but I just can't help having an idealic adoration for the main who born me.   
  
"Say you would, say you could, say you'd come and stop the rain  
  
Say you'd try and hold me tight, and you just give me away  
  
Make me high on lullabies, a melody for me to sway  
  
Say you would, say you could, but you don't do anything"  
  
School starts back soon. For the first time, I am dreading it. I have so little left of my defense and my strength to grasp onto. School means I have to be strong for everyone, live up to their expectations, suffer their cruelty. Also, every school year involves a tragedy for me. Like clockwork. And I just can't handle one more tragedy.   
  
"Say you'd come and stop the rain  
  
Say you'd come and stop the rain  
  
Say you'd come and stop the rain  
  
Say you'd come and stop the rain"  
  
My name is Hamlet. My four o'clock shadow is death. And my life is a hurricane. Every night I pray to Sirius to come back to me and stop the rain. Every night I ask him to return and fix what he broke, just like he promised. And every night one more promise is broken.  
  
~fin 


	2. Chapter 2

'Lo, there. Anyway, though I have no intention of making a sequel out of my story, I do have intentions of editing the piece on account of a number of grammatical (and artistic) no-no's. However, if I still have anyone who cares about my writing, I might be willing to try to write a series. Of course, it would need angst; that's where my ability with words shines, after all. Anyway, anyone who likes my writing style? Inform me. It's been years since I've written anything but an academic essay, so I need a wee bit of a push.


End file.
